22 Oct
The ACT is set to pass Australia's first same-sex marriage law. Its Marriage Equality Bill will be debated on Tuesday, and a Labor-Greens majority in the ACT Legislative Assembly means it is certain to pass.

21 Oct
The Prime Minister's sister, Christine Forster, is engaged to her long term partner, Virginia Edwards - but admits that with debate raging over same sex marriage, "It might be a long engagement."

22 Oct
There was such universal joy and rapture in and around the Legislative Assembly at midday on Tuesday as the same-sex marriage legislation succeeded that one even half expected the usually scowling statue of Ethos (on the Assembly's doorstep) to be smiling for once.

22 Oct
At a Canberra club, four years ago, Kelly Butcher was “just doing some karaoke” when she met the love of her life.

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So many people saying this is against God. If this is true, why don't you just pray to it and leave the real world to the rest of us. If it is against a God I am sure he could make a TV appearance or something. Or is that beyond its power? I notice all his publications are written by others. It didn't do anything about the Holocaust, but maybe this marriage equality issue will be what gets it upset.

Commenter

Chris

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 2:17PM

& this is where we have our nations capital??? No wonder we're on an obvious downward spiral of morality in humanity...

Can anyone name 1 gay civilisation that has lasted past a generation? You can't, because there hasn't been one & never will be. Why? Because of the natural order of our species, it cannot happen.

Commenter

Stupid ACT

Location

waiting to close the closet door

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 2:01PM

Homosexuals are around 2% of every society. This Bill does not mandate you to marry someone of the same gender, it just allows you to do so if you choose to. No law will make you homosexual. Your parents really should have explained this.

Commenter

Chris

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 2:48PM

"Can anyone name 1 gay civilisation that has lasted past a generation?"

EVERY civilisation has included gays and lesbians, in roughly consistent percentages, regardless of location, race, culture or religion. Gays and lesbians have managed to procreate just like everyone else, if that is your concern.

Honestly, why are people so fixated on whether or not same-sex couples can bear children? The salient point here is that they are successfully raising children, whether their biological children or not, right now in our communities and that those families deserve the same protections in the law that are enjoyed by other families. Would you apply the same constraints and concerns to opposite-sex couples who cannot have their own biological children? It's totally irrelevant to make this part of the marriage equality debate.

Commenter

rivenrock

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 3:46PM

A great first step for Australia.

As a married gay man and proud of it, I have to say this has been a long time coming. I was just recently married in Spain and it was one of the most Spiritual and moving days of my life. There were over 80 guests including my parents, my partners and my daughter. The wedding was done by a religious representative who combined both a Jewish and Catholic ceremony for us to make this marriage an event under god. No one had ever seen such a beautiful love filled day.

Australia is still quite far behind the rest of the world and this is a shame. We need to show we are forward thinking and respect all people as supposedly this is what this country is about. Respect and equality for all. No matter your religion, gender preference, race or colour. We are all human and that's it.

Finally I can say we are moving forward. Now for the rest of the states.

Commenter

Benzane

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:20PM

Congratualtions! I'm glad we're on our way to your marriage being fully recognised all over Australia.

Commenter

rivenrock

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 3:47PM

I just love how the religious have tried to hijack religious and political freedoms when in fact they are a cosequence of The Enlghtenment, a movement that rejected religion and rejected fundamentalism. Hooray for Voltaire, Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great and the writers of the Encyclopedia.

Commenter

JB

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:02PM

I'm all for equality, too. This discrimination between apples and oranges must cease!

By the way, if marriage has nothing to do withh the conception of children, why do we forbid close blood relatives to marry? That's "discrimination" too, isn't it?

Commenter

Homophobe

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:00PM

If marriage has everything to do with the conception of children, why are they not required (or even mentioned!) in the Federal Marriage Act?

Commenter

Frank Earnest

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:47PM

We forbid marriage between siblings and lineal ancestors/descendents because it is a criminal offence. Being gay is not a crime.

Commenter

Mike

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:55PM

Mike, can you tell us why it is a criminal offence to do so? Just asking, as it to can now be deemed as discriminatory, can't it? It wasn't that long ago that it was a criminal offence to be homosexual either. What kind of can of worms are we continuing to open?

Commenter

Indeed

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 2:55PM

Did I say that marriage has everything to do with the conception of children? The Marriage Act does not specifically mention chidren for the obvious reason that since time immemorial marriage, whether love, arranged, polygamous, bigamous, incestuous or paedophilic, has been the union of one or more men with one or more women. Societies decided who could mate with who on the basis of with whom it was considered appropriate to breed. Our restrictions reflect this. Thus marriage belongs in the realm of sex, not love, and same-sex marriage is impossible

Commenter

Homophobe

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 4:59PM

No Mike, being homosexual is not a crime. Same sex marriage is. Marrying close blood relatives would not be illegal either if the act was repealed. That is not an argument for changing the definition of marriage.

Commenter

Homophobe

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 5:04PM

See, even the "debate" is thoroughly PC, eh? How about some facts? How about the truth?

No, no, Snide, let's be fashionable instead! Let's buck tradition, decency, let's pretend these people don't commit disusting acts. Let's not bring up the fact that we used to execute them for their acts. Don't mention AIDS, let's forget statistics, let's let them indulge in their fantasies, eh?

Fair dinkum! Pathetic and an insult to the MAJORITY ! !

Commenter

Snidery Mark

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:58AM

I couldn't agree more!

Commenter

Indeed

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 1:18PM

The MAJORITY of Australians want marriage equality.

So basically you want the govenrment to withhold marriage from people whose sex lives you don't like. Will you also be campaigning for the government to withhold marriage from straight couples who practice sodomy? Also, you mentioned old laws we're forgetting. Racial intermarriage also used to be illegal. Should the government be withholding marriage from interracial couples.

Feel free to meet us in 2013 any time you like.

Commenter

rivenrock

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 3:55PM

Such a blatant, shameless stunt by the ACT. The marriage power belongs to the Commonwealth under the Australian Constitution s 51(xxi). They know perfectly well that they don't have the authority to legislate on this matter and that the Commonwealth will have their legislation overturned. Gay people are being used as political pawns in the Liberal/Labor conflict.

Commenter

Ash

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:56AM

So, you cannot say "sodomy" at all in this debate, is it?

Oh, reality, where is thy sting?

Commenter

Snidery Mark

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:54AM

I am a lesbian and I want to marry my loving partner of 20 years. What has sodomy got to do with it?

Commenter

Veronica the Voter

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 1:11PM

As shocking as this may be to you, sodomy is not confined to gay couples. Straight couples engage in it all the time.

Commenter

Jace

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 1:17PM

Jace, & you think everyone is ok with this? Just because some people do it, doesn't make it ok & right to do so.

Commenter

Indeed

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 2:58PM

No they don't, Jace. Some do, perhaps. Then, despite the lies peddled by the homosexual lobby, that (not homosexuality) was illegal too in the days when "the abominable crime of buggery" was illegal.

Commenter

Homophobe

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 5:08PM

I'm sick of government red tape and regulation holding up our economy.

Can't see why Marriage Deregulation hasn't featured more strongly in the Abbott Government deregulation agenda.

Commenter

Morgan

Location

Canberr

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:52AM

I, for one, am glad that this debate is happening in the ACT. It sets an example for the rest of the states and territories to follow suit. It may pass...and it may get struck down in the high court...but at least a victory will get some air time so the rest of the progressive world will know that Australia is not completely backwards.

Commenter

Whatever your politics, it's about time.

Location

The progressive world.

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:51AM

So calling it "ptogressive" makes it right, does it?

Commenter

Homophobe

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 1:17PM

Yes, it does. The same way that women's voting rights, civil rights for African Americans and recognising the suffering of Indigenous Australians was also progressive.

"The ACT votes" LOL!!!!!! What a complete joke, you have greenie loving hypocrites who live in houses created by mining and driving cars created by mining backed up with the homosexual loving Gallagher who are deciding the vote, NOT the ACT. Several members of the Legislature do not speak for all Canberrans. I don't agree with letting homos have the same right to what has always been a law about a man and woman. Oh and Mr Corbell, you say everyone agrees with it. I am yet to find someone who does. Maybe they all work in the PS, they are the only ones stupid enough to agree with anything Labor has to say.

Commenter

zzREXzz

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:49AM

I have a gay nephew and am not against gays having legal arrangements at all. However all who support Gay Marriage had a mum and dad as a child. We all have a responsibility to protect the future rights of little children.This is all about a sickness in western society all who support it have no regard for children. When a 2 men can make a baby or 2 women sure lets have Gay Marriage

Commenter

Tony Gramhaam

Location

Canberra

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:33AM

I just don't understand this point of view. Gay people can have children via adoption, IFV, surrogacy, fostering already - all without being married. Likewise, being married does not mean that a couple has to have children, and having children does not mean that a couple has to get married. Marriage does not equal children, and children do not equal marriage. They're separate things. You're talking about 'protecting little children' to try and play with people's emotions and insinuate gay parenting is somehow dangerous, because you know your argument against gay marriage is a nonsense.

Commenter

MJ

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:15PM

Short-sighted and untrue. Firstly, same-sex couples, including those raising children, are more evident now, but they have always existed. Also, there are many family configurations that don't involve a mum and a dad. What about children raised by a mother and a grandmother, or by a single dad, etc? In determining what makes good parenting, the gender of a parent is irrelevant. What makes my parents good or bad for me has NOTHING to do with the fact that one is a woman and one a man.

Also, while you are mounting your 'think of the children' defence, why don't you think about the gay children, who should be growing up with the assurance that they are seen as equal in their society, with the same right to dream of one day having their own wedding and legally recognised family? What about the children being raised by same-sex couples right now - who also deserve for their family to have legal recognition? What about the straight children who deserve to live in a country where equality is valued and supported in the law and where the bigotry of other generations is not reflected in the laws they live under?

I support this law BECAUSE I can about the welfare of children, not because I don't.

Commenter

rivenrock

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:23PM

I agree! When an infertile man and an infertile woman can make a baby by natural means then we should allow infertile couples to get married ...

... oh, wait ..

Commenter

rob1966

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:55PM

Yes, rivenrock and MJ, homosexual couples, whether or not they hide behind the euphemism "gay" often raise chidren, and often do it very well. But they are households, not families. The children concerned belong to only one of them at best - unless you think babies really can be bought, sold, given away like puppies! And as for emotional arguments - isn't "poor me, I can't have my relationship legally acknowledged like everybody else's" rather emotional?

Commenter

Homophobe

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 1:24PM

@homophobe .. yes, just like adopted and foster children are only a part of a heterosexual "household" .. oh, wait ..

Commenter

rob1966

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 3:07PM

If truth be told isn't this entire same sex marriage debate just a grubby little attempt to get access to other people money , property and Superannuation funds by so called "Marriages" which will never produce children, the primary reason for marriage?.

Isn't it just a giant fraud in pursuit of MONEY?.

No wonder all the herds of Lawyers and 2nd rate conveyance clerks in Canberra are so supportive, more business for them..... money-money-money makes the World go around..

At least lets be honest about it.. or can't you handle the truth?.

Commenter

Toys will get Played

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:15AM

yes, we need to do an audit of all marriages and void all those marriages between a man and a woman who have had no children. All those shame marriages between men and women who have no children add to the mockery made of importance and role of the civil institution that we call marriage.

Commenter

robbie66

Location

canberra

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:25AM

"which will never produce children"

Many heterosexual marriages will never produce children, either by a twist of biology of by choice. Your point?

Commenter

Mike

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:28AM

Its not a fraud.Its an opportunity to create equality for straight and gay couples to Government entitlements and benefits.

Commenter

Kane

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:29AM

Yes, Robbie, the same simplistic utterences from those beyond reproach, eh? Keep up the name-calling and your cries of discrimination. Neither have any basis and neither have any documented support.Love how this minority is the authority on love, marriage and family, eh?

Commenter

Snidery Mark

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:33AM

Ooh, you old romantic!

I can just imagine your own proposal... "Hey babe, why not marry me for the fabulous tax breaks! It's all about the money y'know."

Commenter

Frank Earnest

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:36AM

governments entitlements and benefits.

Commenter

Kane

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:38AM

I love anti gay marriage people, they always harp on about the "minority" forcing their view on the "majority" even though consistent polling in Australia has found a majority of the country is in favor of gay marriage. This makes those against it in the minority and they should follow their own arguments and stop inflicting their will on the majority in favor of gay marriage.

Commenter

JC

Location

Melb

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:47AM

TWGP: What a twisted perspective. You are really stretching any which way you can to find a reason to oppose equality, aren't you?

Commenter

rivenrock

Location

Canberra

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:09PM

Who is opposing equality? Where does the Marriage Act forbid homosexuals to marry under the same rules as everybody else? Is that not equality? Was not Abbot's infamous sister once married?

Commenter

Homophobe

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 1:28PM

God will judge these people harshly for their sin.

Commenter

Trust in Him

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:08AM

Which god? Which people? What sin? Marriage is a secular matter and homosexuality is legal. Please join the 21st century.

Commenter

Mike

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:30AM

They are already being judged. I know this for a fact!

Commenter

Snidery Mark

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:35AM

Guanyin will judge you harshly for your ignorance.

Commenter

Eren

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:37AM

How do you know?God might forgive.Judge not others ,you know.The mortal mind can never fathom the mind of God.

Commenter

Kane

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:39AM

Is this the "god" of the Bible? The "god" who directed his followers to kill the Amalekite babies? The "god" who allows and promotes slavery? The "god" who allows rapists to buy unmarried victims for 50 pieces of silver? The "god" who directs people to kill their children to see if they will?

Commenter

Bob

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:52AM

To presume to speak for God is technically idolatory as it places you in God's image

Commenter

no_subject

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:57AM

Australia was founded on secularism...there is NO church of Australia, so leave God out of it. The churches are not expected to change anything in their practices or definition of marriage. This legislation is about marriage equality for the secular community. I am a heterosexual woman whose marriage was a civil ceremony...I also have no kids...should my marriage be void? I'm confused as to what your point is.

Commenter

Whatev

Location

Atheistown

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:58AM

Yes, she is already judging all those who are opposing 'god is love' - all those against marriage equality will be judged harshly for having separate but equal love rather than equal love - if you are a believer please remember all people are created in the image of go, not just the ones you like!!!

Commenter

robbie66

Location

canberra

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:03PM

If that is true, screw God. If he commands bigotry and inequality, screw God. He deserves neither our respect or interest. His views and demands are irrelevant to decent human beings.

Commenter

rivenrock

Location

Canberra

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:05PM

You don't know god my friend.God does not judge, only humans do.God is far beyond that ;)

Commenter

Benzane

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:33PM

A bit hard for something that doesn't exist to judge anything - least of all the happiness of a married couple.

In any case, you lot claim your god as the most famous designer that ever existed, then in your next breath claim your god is homophobic .. really? That's no designer I've ever met!

Commenter

Rob1966

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:52PM

It is about time that people realised that marriage is a civil issue not a religious issue. Divorce and marriage are both granted by the state. Everyone should have to have a civil ceremony and then what ever they do with their god is a totally separate issue. And the christian/Jewish bible/tora is not the place to find models of marriage for people to be putting forward - a man marrying their sister who cannot become pregnant so he has it off with the help, multiple wives & concubines, rapists marrying their victims, slavery as long as you pay a fair price for the girl - all are the words of god - so please do not select which words of god you follow and which you ignore - you take it all or you take none of it. So leave religion out of who can get married!!

Commenter

robbie66

Location

Canberra

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:06AM

the State only gets its civil rights from God , if you really study it.

Commenter

Kane

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:28AM

Sorry robbie66 but the concept of marriage and the restrictions on it are from God and therefore "religious". The civil side of it is to see that its implemented as per God's instructions.

Commenter

Adrian of Dapto

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:43AM

People keep saying that this is about discrimination but it isn't, it's about what is right and what is wrong.

No one has a right to do what is wrong.

Commenter

Adrian of Dapto

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 11:46AM

Kane ... the state got civil rights from God? Answer this: 1) How did slaves get civil rights when the bible is pro-slavery? 2) How did children get civil rights when the bible allows parents to kill them?

Commenter

Bob

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:06PM

Exactly. Churches are voluntary organisations and as such, they can discriminate in their membership, etc. But governments must not discriminate in this fashion and should offer equality under the law without discrimination, no matter what opposing opinion bigoted citizens may offer.

Commenter

rivenrock

Location

Canberra

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:07PM

Kane and Adrian, which god? The concept of marriage predates Christianity and indeed predates all organised religion. Marriage exists in non-Christian religions. Atheists can get married too. Ergo, marriage has nothing to do with any god. Marriage is a civil institution.

Commenter

Mike

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:26PM

If you wish to invoke you "god" as the basis for anything, then at least have the decency to provide some credible evidence as to its existence.

Until then, your "god" like unicorns sits in the fanciful fairy tale category

Commenter

Rob1966

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 12:49PM

Yes Mike, marriage, in many forms, pre-existed al of the modern religions at least. And it has always been the union of one or more males with one or more females. People of the same sex cannot marry.

Commenter

Homophobe

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 5:11PM

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has said that if his bikie laws are struck down as unconstitutional, they will keep reintroducing variations of the law until 'something sticks'. Considering he's an LNP premier, I don't think the Liberal Party can have any problem with the ACT Government 'trying again' should this legislation be struck down.

Commenter

MJ

Date and time

October 22, 2013, 10:45AM

Its global, its from the Un ,Its compusory for the new world agendas of a one world government .Its groundwork ,placing the foundation stones for the architects to complete their building on .Its the circle of life.